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<title>a shared hypothetical by Miraphina Atherton (mew_tsubaki)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28947711">a shared hypothetical</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mew_tsubaki/pseuds/Miraphina%20Atherton'>Miraphina Atherton (mew_tsubaki)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCIS</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Friendship, Pre-Relationship, minor spoilers for s18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:40:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28947711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mew_tsubaki/pseuds/Miraphina%20Atherton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sloane's remark about a certain reason for vacation prompts Torres to ask Bishop a very direct question.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nick Torres/Ellie Bishop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>59</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a shared hypothetical</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The NCIS characters belong to Donald P. Bellasario, not to me. What do you do when you have a million Ellick ideas from season 17? Put them on hold when season 18 gives you more Ellick ideas instead. :P Read, review, and enjoy! *Note: This is set during s18e4, "Sunburn," but only has one minor spoiler for it, really.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"If we can manage to solve this without interrupting McGee's vacation, that'll buy us a year's worth of good karma," Bishop remarked. Her dark eyes were lit up by her phone's screen, to which they'd been glued since the pair of agents had exited the building. Luckily Torres had parked his car close by, so their walk had been a short distance.</p><p>"Yeah, well, we can't solve jack on empty stomachs," he reminded her as they climbed into the vehicle. "Plus, considering Kasie's doing some of the heavy lifting right now, we ought to bring something back for her as well as the others."</p><p>"Uh-huh."</p><p>Torres glanced at her before pulling out of the lot. At least she'd managed to buckle up before her fingers resumed flying over her keyboard. "Bishop, you're entitled to a lunch break. You're also allowed to <em>blink</em>."</p><p>She briefly picked up her head and met his eyes. "Sorry, what?"</p><p>He chuckled. "Never mind. Just can't solve jack on empty stomachs," he repeated. He snorted at the pun.</p><p>"Now what?"</p><p>Torres debated how his sentence made him think of Jack Sloane, and he further debated prying Bishop over that moment in the bullpen this morning. Sloane likely had meant to be a touch cheeky, answering Torres' question of landing a Bahamas vacation like McGee and Delilah's with "Then have twins." Instead of retorting to Sloane, he'd instinctively looked to Bishop, unable to fight a tiny smile.</p><p>And Bishop had met his eyes at that exact same moment. And she'd <em>smirked back</em>.</p><p>By now it was lunchtime, but it was a vivid detail from this morning that crept to the forefront of Torres' mind whenever he let his focus drift from their escape room murder. It was a fun reverie to replay and possibly something to dissect later on when they weren't so busy and Bishop weren't multitasking, so he decided against asking her directly about that <em>look</em>. Nevertheless, another question came to mind.</p><p>Bishop poked him in the arm with her phone as a red light turned green. "Nick? You were going to say…?"</p><p>He drove past the closest Beltway Burger and went first for Pinky's to grab Kasie's favorite tea, taking them to the furthest point on their roundtrip. By the time he'd figured out how he wanted to ask her, they were already in line at Pinky's recently added drive-through. "So, how big a family do you want?"</p><p>She obviously had taken his silence at the red-turned-green light ages ago as an abrupt end to conversation. But the quiet in the car meant there was no missing his question, and it yanked her attention from her phone, hard enough that she nearly dropped her device. Bishop gaped at him, looking kind of like a fish out of water with increasingly reddening cheeks, which in turn amused him and made him feel a bit less embarrassed for asking.</p><p>Torres left Bishop floundering for another minute to order Kasie's tea. Then he turned back to her. "C'mon. You heard Jack earlier today. It wasn't the worst excuse for a getaway. But lots of people think of having a family, maybe, someday, if they can." He paused to shrug and hoped Bishop would calm down and simply enjoy the hypothetical. "So, how big a family did Eleanor Bishop plan to orchestrate even if the cards didn't fall into place at her every whim?"</p><p>Bishop regained her composure when he rephrased. She narrowed her eyes at him and cocked her head to the left as they rolled forward in the queue. "Ha, ha. I wasn't the little girl who drew pictures of a big house with the white picket fence, Nick."</p><p>He shrugged again and gestured nonchalantly with his right hand. "No judgment if you did or didn't."</p><p>Bishop pursed her lips, but the color in her cheeks didn't fade. And perhaps she had more to say, because he thought he glimpsed a peek of that smirk when he turned to the takeout window to pay for their order.</p><p>Of course, considering he'd already given Bishop a dose of odd timing, he now had a taste of his own medicine. Maybe Bishop was giving his question some serious thought because she hadn't considered that future for herself before…or maybe she needed to take a moment before confiding, but either way they'd already grabbed assorted wraps for the team from a place Palmer had introduced Torres to recently (because having one's car blown up meant Palmer got to discover new restaurants on the city bus routes) before she spoke another word.</p><p>Bishop had the bag of food on the floor between her feet and clearly debated whether to start eating now or wait until they returned to the office, but ultimately she wound the handles of the food bag around her fingers to keep it closed. Then she looked at Torres. "…one to three is a nice idea," the blonde said.</p><p>"One to three?"</p><p>"Yeah. One to three kids. One I could definitely handle. Three max because I don't know <em>what</em> my mom was thinking—me plus my three brothers was way too much." She grinned, her cheeks dimpling.</p><p>Torres grinned, too, and laughed, even, recalling the last time the brothers Bishop had been in D.C. "Sound reasoning," he praised.</p><p>"So?"</p><p>He didn't bother pretending not to know what she was asking. It was only fair he answer his own question, too. Torres rubbed his chin, half wishing this lunch run were longer and half pondering his question. "Probably same," he agreed.</p><p>Bishop furrowed her brow. "Only probably?"</p><p>Torres' grin was a little tight as they sat at the corner a block from the naval base. "Well, if more than one, I'd definitely help my kids stay closer and not let them put distance between each other. Y'know—the way Lucia and I did for a while, letting work come first and family, second."</p><p>This time when the car sat silent, Torres didn't understand why. But when he looked over, he found Bishop smiling softly at him, the type of smile that crinkled her eyes a little and faintly dimpled her left cheek only—a fond smile in response to his frankness. She touched his hand on the gearshift, a quick pat followed by a reassuring squeeze. "You'd be a great dad, Nick," she told him.</p><p>Though teasing Bishop was fun and—if this morning were any example—flirting was fun, too, the honesty in her words…was a lot. It meant a lot, but it was also just…a lot. So Torres, relieved to see the light turn green, deflected with a joke. "Yeah, well, you know me—I'd be that cool biker dad. Oh, hey"—his eyes lit up—"do you think they make leather jackets in baby sizes?"</p><p>Bishop, thankfully, rolled her eyes. "Oh, my God, Nick, you cannot take a <em>child</em> on a <em>motorcycle</em>!"</p><p>"I'm not gonna! Just gotta dress the part—father and son, the epitome of cool fashion." He flashed her a toothy grin for good measure.</p><p>But Bishop snorted, her phone at last back in her hands and half recapturing her attention. "If I buy you two matching sunglasses, will that be enough? Because there's no way I'm letting that kid outside in a leather jacket."</p><p>It took Torres' brain a second to catch up, and he spluttered out a "sure" and made it back to headquarters in one piece. But he wondered, as they went inside and Bishop shared a bemused smile with him, if she heard the slight implication in her words, that…maybe that hypothetical kid wasn't just his…</p><p>…but hers, too.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>:3c YOKAY. So I had to write this fluffy thang when Sloane offered us Ellick shippers that tasty bit of fodder at the start of "Sunburn," bc DAYUM I did not miss that chemistry at all and my heart skipped a beat. Also I need more Torres family fics (him and Lucia and Amanda, for instance, not just him and Bishop making a fam), so I need to work on writing some of my other story ideas, *lol*—but if anyone has any Torres family fic recs, please send me some! :D</p><p>Thanks for reading, and please review! Check out my other NCIS fics if you liked this.</p><p>-mew-tsubaki :3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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